The Sun. — London, England, 1818-10-23 00:00:00

FEDERA AFRICANA. (Nu. IX.] THE CASE OF FRANCE. 'Fite case of France only remains t( he con sidered, and it has strongly supported the gene ral hypothesis, as has already in part beet: sbewn. " Of all .the offending nations," (said the veriter of 1807,) " her lot hEts perhaps been the most deplorable. Her glory is like the liOt of a conflagration; a lustre fed by ruin, misery, and death, in the mansion to which it belongs." Perhaps her enormous aggrandisement by fo reign -conquest might, at that time, seen; to-coint ter-balance in some measure the internal ties. by which they had been prepared. But where are those conquests now ? and how many humiliations as well as tertible disasters has'she since sustained! I ant far from supposing; that France bad tint, prior to her Revolution, as well as since, pro voked the Divine displeasure by other crimes than thoseof which her Colonies and the African Con tinent were the theatres. Undoubtedly there was odenee enough, even .within her own borders, to merit the chastisements she has received: The same may be said of all the other slave-trading ttar,ions. We can hardly imagine, indeed, any case of an avenging Providence, in which the grand and immediate provocation singled out for the display of - Divine justice, has not been pre ceded and accompanied by others also of a hein ous kind ; for atrocious offences are rarely either of rapid or solitary growth, whether in personal or national character. When therefore we speak of a particniar sin as having drawn down Divine judgments on a nation or individual, we mean only that it was the chief provocation, and that on account of .which, principally or solely, it pleased Heaven to manifest its displeasure; let ting its chastising hand appear front behind that druid of second causes which usually veils its par ticular moral government, by circumstances which significantly marked the relation between the punishment and the crime. ft was in this view that the Ti act of January 1807 represented the Slave Trade as the great an tle-revolutionary crime of France, as well as of the other colonising Powers of Europe, which Lad. excited the. anger of Eleaven, and b e en chas tised by the calamities of the age. It was the same which, to use his own words, " stood pro inioently forth among their national offences ; de fying, like Satan, in the foremost rank, the wrath of the Ahnighty," 'The indications of this offending cause, in the .caie of France, were pointed out by hint in the time, and magnitude, and general character, of those strange calamities which overwhelmed the king and nation so speedily after the grand ex tension of the French Slave Trade, through the excitement of the Royal Ordinances and bounties. Th e y -might have been found, perhaps, also in some of the predisposing causes of the Revolu tion ; and still more in the particular nature and circumstances of its afflicting events. There had been a great and rapid change in the principles and Maxims of the French G(o.'ern- Mem; of kallich the eager patronage of the Slave Trade, in and after 171i4, was only one of the trvits. Aristocratical feelings, which, combined enthusiastic loyalty, were the great support of the ihroue, bad been much and dangerously relaxtd,in favone of Colonial interests. The Aare of sp:endiu fortunes, rapidly acquired in the col•nties, and profusely spent in Europe, had given to the sugar planting lottety, in France as well as in England, great and delusive attractions, witi47 the less opulent of the ancient Nobility found theMselves eclipsed in splendour by those Meteors iroat another hemisphere ; and more un- able than before to sustain the appearances which their rank prescribed, under the reigning habits , of expense, and luxury of manners ; evils which the same competition of colonial opulence had tended greatly to inflame. It became, there fore, a natural and very frequent expedient ivith old French Nobles, to sustain their sinking fortunes by alliances with the families of Opulent colonists ; and this as naturally led to their en gaging in sugar-planting on their own account, either on estates that came to them by marriage, or which they bought for the purpose. The agri cultural aspect of such specolations, threw a veil over their commercial character, and thereby re codeiled them better to, the pride of the French Noblesse. Hence an intimate cotanexion was formed between tire Colonies and the Coutt ; and their influence there became so powerful, that no thing was refused to them that was thought likely to promote their interest, or increase their conse quence and ,credit. Their successful planters were raised iu such great numbers to the class of Nobility, as powerfully to break down in France the salutai.y feeling of respect for hereditary rank ; end also much to increase there the inconvenience pt personal privileges, add that popular hatred of them which was. soon so fatally indulged. The evil was the greater, from the unstable and pre carious nature of property in the sugar colonies. The wealth that had o' - lained Nobility for the planter of Martinique or St. Domingo, was very likely to vanish in a few years, and leave him and his - family encumbrances on society, by a rank %. which they could not sustain. It would be easy to skew, it time would per , mit, how great a weight was cast, by causes such as these, into the revolutionary scale, at a time when disaffection and selfish ambition, with the 11ave of change, so fatally preponderated over the loyall of France. It is commonly supposed, in deed;. that the colonial interest at that period ge nerally sided with the Crown ; but this is a popu lar error, and quite opposite to truth. The ex ercise of private despotism had not failed to pro chree in the French West Indies its ordinary ef ttfcts ; nursing a proud and turbulent spirit in the dominant class, which made them impatient under the curb of authority, and well disposed t (rem to any change.that might impart to them iethlical power. Many, indeed, "of the ancient Nobies, who ivere among the earliest emigrants, waue•proprietoes of estates in the West Indies and a O&M - proportion of the planters of St. Do.. ig n„ gn an d d n adaloupe soon became loyaliSts and exiies, because the question was no longer be. tureen the Crown and the Convention, but be tween themselves and their slaves. But until it was made apparent that the rights of man would not he limited to the 'colour of the skin, the Royalists in no part of the dominion's of France, perhaps, formed a smaller minority than in the towns of her West Indian Islands. „._ . IVhatevel consequences resulted to the French Govonment 'from these causes, the mischief was well deserved ; because, while the supposed inte rests o f commerce and of revenue bad been greedi ly promoted in the Colonies, those of justice and humanity towards thy slaves, awl of religion, had been wholly neglected and forgotten. This, in deed, was not unnatural, when colonial feelings and prejudices directed the measures of the Court. The Code Noir of Louis XIV, was suffered to fall into almost total disuse. Christii4ii instruction to the slaves had never, since the first settlement of the Freticlr islands, teen so grossly neglected ; and never Were the cruel practices of masters less controlled by the laws. The only efforts in re lation to the unflottmate slaves of a Government possessing the whole legislative power, were em ployed to aggravate and perpetuate their moral degradation and their misery ; for that such must be the effect of rapidly augmenting their wimbers, by new excitements to the Slave Trade, it is needless to prove. In the large bounties given for importation, there was not -even any discrimination as tip the sexes, in order to lessen that shocking disparity between them which the Slave Trade always produces ; though it is ad mitted by the apologists of the Colonies to be a source of the most lamentable and incorrigible evils, both physical and moral. Thus did the French Government, under the unfortunate Louis XVI. discharge its duties in th e An t illes ! It forgot its responsibility to God, and-sought only to gratify the planters. .11 , ,t the hour of retribution was arrives. Tlie cry of in nocent blood ascended up to [leaven, the groans of the oppressed bondmen entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbaoth, and the 'evolutionary plague - began. IVhile the throne was patronising an extreme and merciless slavery, a liberty as extreme and as merciless was advancing to subvert the throne. While the French Nobility was widening its base by oppression, its own ruthless oppressors were at hand. While the French Treasury teas abet ting an iniquitous commerce, and disbursing large sums as the price or innocent blood, * ►he indi gence of that very Treasury became the immediate occasion of convoking the States, and of all the evils that followed. • Whether the lavishing public honours and mo ney for the extension of the Slave Trade and sla very, thus contributed in a natoral way to pre pare the Revolution or not, the calamities that ensued had in their particular nature, as well as in the apt time of their arrival, circumstances that seem pretty strongly to mark them as chastise ments of the crime. The Tegria, or predatory slave-making wars themselves, with all their noc turnal horrors, the cruel imprisonments, the false accusations, the unjust and corrupt judgments, and all the other modes of violence and wrong, which France suborned in Africa for the supply of her Slave Trade, seemed to be brought home into her own bosom. They could hardly at least be more dreadful or flagitious than were the mob massacres, the revolutionary denunciation, and tribunals, the civil and military executions, and the barbarities of every kiud that soon after scourged the interior of that ill-fated land. The same universal terror, the same perpetual insecu rity of life and liberty, 16ng prevailed in both countries; nor could the white and black savages, whom the French bounties stimulated to torment the unhappy Africans, be more wicked awl terri ble than their Jacobin avengers. Exile and indi gence in a foreign land became also to French Statesmen and Nobles, to the Colonial Proprie tors, and other classes of persons most involved in the national crime, a retaliation strikingly close. As they could not be sold for slaves in England or Europe, it would hardly, without a miracle, he closer. If we turn to the events that soon followed in St. Domingo, and the other French colonies, the case will be still more impressive. In two years, 1787 and 1788, no less t}►au 60,345 slaves ap peared, by authentic official returns, to have been imported into St. Domingo alone ; and it is pro bable, as we have already seen, that five times that n►►mber at least were brought to that and other French colonies within seven years, by the direct instigation of that Government which was soon after su terribly chastised. Where are the colonial advantages that were so eagerly expected from this enormous mass of human misery and guilt ? What are now the in terests of France in St. Domingo ? We have re stored to her Martinique and Guadaloupe ; but ‘vhere arc her other sugar colonies ? and what did she reap from any of them during three and twenty years, but hnmiliation, bankruptcy, and blood ? The horrible theatre of St. Domingo deserves distincter notice, and would open to us new and most interesting views, not only of an avenging, hnt a delivering Providence. But they must be reserved for an abler pen; or at le . ast• for a fu ture occasion ; as they are too important to be lightly sketched, and far too wide for ray present limits. I will only remark here, that as the pro prietors and merchants of that island %sere no toriously the chief instigators of France, in her sins against the Africa!' race, so they have drunk the deepest of that cup of Divine indignation which was filled for their unfortunate country. France, having been thus severely chastised, and having at the same time been made a scourge for her associates in the Slave Trade, obtained by the Peace of Amiens a breathing time, and an opportunity for repentance. She had abolished the Slave Trade by law ; but it was a merely no minal sacrifice during her maritime war. Now It is estimated, in the Tract referred to, on very proba ble grounds, that the whole importation into all the French colonies, under the new system of bounties, which began in 1734, amounted to 300,000. The bounties on staves imported into the French colonies were at first rin livres per head, in the Windward Islands, and 100 litres in St: Domingo, which were raised before the Revolution respectively to 160 and 430 byres. Taking a medium of these sums, and adding 'the tonnage bounties, by an average of .five slaves to three tons, we shall find it probable, that above two millions and a half sterling were paid by France a short time before her nevolu kiou foe this odious and wicked purpose, was the time to spew whether the reformation' was sincere. Had she been pions or virtuous enough to adhere to it, great might have been her reward. Sure lam it would not have been so easy to involve her speedily again in a new war with England. She would not have ruined her best commercial hopes from peace by Making a waste of St. Domingo, or thrown away a large arn►y there merely to annihilate the means that might have enriched her, and made her mistress of the Antilles. On the courrary, she would have assumed that formidable attitude in the West Indies, to wl►ich the black armies of Hayti, under her brave and faithful Toussaint, and that of Guadaloupe, under Pelage, invited her. Instead of destroying those Chiefs, the former, by perfi dious ingratitude, fouler than ever before stained the annals of a civilized people, anti the latter by a crime that inspires equal abhorrence, though less pity for the victim*, she would have united them, and the whole of that indigenous force which revolution had created for her in those co lonies, in the firmest hands of allegiance to her self, and' enthusiastic devotion to her service.— We had proved so well their invincibility, and the ruitious loss of men anti money incident to a war against such enemies in the West Indies, that had France been their beloved mistress, instead of their execrated tyrant,. a new quarrel with her would have had many terrors for us, of which she effectually disarmed it in that part of the world. . We must have set out in the contest With a most destructive expenditure, and alarming di version of force, for the defence of our most va lable colonies. The interests connected with Malta would have been poised perhaps against those of our Leeward Islands and .httnaica ; and even the new dangers of the Continent might have lost some of their influence in our councils, when such new considerations were opposed to the very doubtful remedy of drawing again our maritime sword. Besides. France herself might have felt motives for a pacific policy, it her colonies, instead of consuming her resources by fruitless expeditions, bad been yielding to her the commercial benefi!s of peace. It may be added, that her conduct in the case supposed,wonld certainly have multiplied in this country the numbers, and strengthened the bands of those who thought favourably of her Government, or who deprecated as Christians ur philanthropists the renewal of war. But France, happily for ourselves, perhaps, and for Europe, took a different course. Napo leon had no sooner Obtained sea-room for his ruthlesi.policy, than he resolved on the restitu tion of colonial slavery and the Slave Trade. thought it convenient, indeed, to conceal for awhile those purposes, the better - to deceive Tous saint, and the other coloured Chiefs, and even to declare a contrary purpose, hypocritically remark ing; " that it would cost humanity . too much to attempt new revolutions in the colonies in which slavery had been abolished." But on the 19th of May, 1802,. having accomplished, as he thought, his perfidious purpose at St. Domingo, as well as the other islands, he threw off the mask. lie brought forward the project of a law before the Senate, or Tribunitial Council, enacting, that slavery should be maintained in the colonies, and that the Slave Trade should be restored, and car ! . vied on conformably to the laws and regulations that existed in 1789. There was opposition' to the measure in the Senate, for it was carried only by a division of 54 votes to 27; Probably some horror was felt at the foul ingratitude and cruelty of renxing on the poor negroes of the colonies the galling fetters from which France herself had, nine years befo7e, re leased them, and, perhaps, at the instance of some of those Senators themselves. Whether the opposition was to this, or to the revival of the Slave Trade, or both, I do not know. The debate was not publishe l d., All that was heard in England, was, that the Tribunitial Council had voted the law by the majority here mentioned ; and that it was afterwards adopted by the Legislative Assembly. Apparently it passed in the latter unanimously, for no division or dis cussion upon it was noticed in the reports of the legislative proceedings. Thus it pleased Clod to make the national obdu racy of France, like that of Spain and Portugal, manifest to the whole world, before her ultimate chastisements arrived. It might other%lisc have been doubted, whether her nominal reformation, though it certainly cost her nothing, but fell in very suspiciously with her interests at the time, had not been real and sincere. An interval of ma ritime peace was wanted to put her to the proof, and just such an interval was given by the peace of Amiens. She filled it up with all the enormi ties against the poor African race that she could possibly crowd into it. Her barefaced legislative apostacy was followed up with deeds of horror in St. Domingo, at the recital of which. Nature starts back appalled. At Guadaloupe and Cayenne the perfidy was the same, the ingratitude greater, the sanguinary atrocities only less, because after Pelage and his followers were betrayed, there was not, as in St. Domingo, any further resistance to call for the fusillades, time noyades, the blood hounds, and les ecoles des chiens. lu Africa all was done that the short time permitted. The new law, in restoring all the regulations of 1789, had renewed the bounties of Louis XVI. at the highest rates to which he had progressively advvced them. A fearful paroxysm of the Slave Trade, therefore, was preparing for Africa, as well as new expeditions to finish the murderous work sit St. Domingo, when Providence, to punish the oppressors, and rescue the oppressed, permitted the passions of the tyrant to outrun his policy, and to plunge him into a new war with England ; a war which was to end in his own downfall, as well as the signal chastisement of France. [To he continued.] Pelage,_ with the armed mulattoes of Guadaloupe, like Potion and his party, into the snare prepared fur them. They assisted Richepanse to subdue and destroy the armed negroes, or rather performed that service wholly for him, and were rewarded by deportation and death. Their conduct was certainly faulty; and merited their fate, because they knew, at least it seems they could hardly possibly be igno rant; that the perfidious purpose of Napoleon was to reduce the poor negroes to slavery, though they had reteived free- dons from the voluntary act of the Republic herself, and had, by their bravery, reconquered the - island, and defeuded it agaiust us during the whole of the war. ANOTHER DREADFUL MURDER. it °Pel l ' For a week past the water in the we ll t,' Duke of York public-house, at Bromptoo, P-roe' had been affected with so nauseous a taste smell; that it became unfit for use. The a et"N e when drawing,, found something hindered !ee co bucket from filling ; the impediment was suPP;ti ed to be the lid of the well,•which had Wien 1 . and which was also thought to have COMO ° cated the offensive qualities to the water. i „ The girl, however, lately thought that she P s il i ceived something like a body, and on moving Pt rope backward and forwards to fill the bockei: she found pieces of skin and animal sebstance 'lllO tiering to it when it was drawn up ; end Ivit be the last few days the smell at the mouth of t well had become so exceedingly offensive tha t n one would go near it. On Saturday morning the circumstancemo 106 nll so become a matter of conversation ang soldiers who were drinking at the Duke est . Y °ri :, one of them offered for a trifling re ward t° a lt o down the well, which is of great depth , and de a f it of its impurity. He was accordingly loo' way. down, but before he arrived at the botto m he lvfici almost overpowered by the foetid effluvia' n called out to the men who were lowering tit°l td stop Having waited a fetseseconds and rec oeeta„ e , himself, lie proceeded till the bucket touc hed 111 4; water, %viten, leaning over its side, he, w ith . „ in o e nice horror and dismay, discovered a naked "'Ole body floating on its back. To be certai n, he Intel .hold of the hair, when the body rolled over, so the hair and scalp became detached from the skus,' and remained in his hand. Tel►ritied th e r ot treme, and almost reduced to insensibility a t o f horrid sight, lie called to the men on the brie° the well to draw him up. One of his comrades then went down sheet, and having folded it round the dead °4. it was drawn up ; the soldier, however, neat!, b y' a sacrifice to his exertions ; he was so affe ct e d the foul air, that he lost his senses just as li e c ",,et within the reach of the by-stauders, who e"ard. hold of him, and prevented him from falling helot long into the well. The body proved to helve of a woman about 37 years of age, nareedr tr o nelly, the wife of a soldier lately discharg e{ ' d the 98th Regiment. She was far ad vanc,e pregnancy, and being completely nak ed, , / iu ,. beelt : immediately suspected that the woman ha murdered. d a p ir e . A Coroner's Jury was summoned, an quisition taken at 12 o'clock on r S a turdaioe. which continued investigating this ills ° o rsv affair until seven at night, when the evidenc..peog read by the Coroner, and the Jury not agl'ooolf. unanimously in their verdict, an a djournaie n .li e 'oo place till one o'clock on Monday ; freak e gl io ete having been obtained, they continued the n ,i t h ' e fol l tigatioo till five o'clock in the evening. " lowing particulars came out : iNv In - .lle. early part of September, the 96It'ed went, to which the husband of the de eenl ig longed, arrived from Halifax. nonnetrog,s then quartered at the Duke of York, a t a ,ifes i 7 ton; he came there accompanied by hi s 0 1 ► ,t two children, and was lodged in a r° ° ': o • o back of the house the window of w hich ' co g, , five feet from the well in which the decesosombail son was found. The unfortunate wome a 'cc/ 01 12 years older than Donelly ; she was v i e os' )" attached to him ; but was extremelyiessookeAtlP frequently evinced that passion when he gtly rec ta another female ; their quarrels co nsertne ° , frequent, and at times particularly violen b ' et th% On the night of the 17th of Septeni,„ededt.. quarrelled, and front violent words p rose : IP a ' t , blows ; their conduct became desperate;thiea4 nelly forced his wife towards the well, attubrot cued to thlow her into it ; h e r screen s r cep',„ persons to her assistance, and sire wa s ids h'": 'tom his violent efforts to force her t °W4 is well's mouth. s he P',••• The whole of that night, however, " b(.11 the open air, with her head resting 01 ' t as iote i leading into the public-house,where she svi.vitecle next morning with her clothes wet Oro 1 0 00 0 and rain. She was advised Cogs) toberapertilifieol change her apparel, which she did after atecoril'o and in the course of time day she becanle r le y fligyi to her husband. On the followieg Sat": sirotit she was at the club-room at the Doke °' i ge apparent health and ; after tha t u t s i e . was not seen alive by any one in the Detiotoe -On Sunday morning, the 20th SeP.,t'sot Came down from his apartment, auu_ithatit tap-room with his two children, but 7 .sd he her, a" ort s VITA wife ; inquiries were made after that she had gone the preceding nig ° lc o°, to her friends ; he did not know wi° ° s 2hec e h% eefraY se return ; but she had taken 31. to i d t hat )lenses, &c. To other inquiries, he sa id 'f o e was gone off with another man• A , v o ffer p o i went into his apartment on the n t a a . t. she fa iiie i nelly's wife disappeared, stated , t° , res tes ert el, every thing about the room in i l le v ; rg ice" r ei 'order ; the clothes o f the deceased bserve d nt i s lei t about in all directions, ands h! ° wit h ell t v ice of blood upon the bed-linen. N et ' w i t h th e o 'o' strong evidences of rs th 186 lent conduct towards the del g e n i t s el o )(eirGi a l s i l ' i e kt o v lel day preceding, no suspicion aPV, 3 sate rdai m oo his entertained ot the murder until wa g for '7 • after the body held been lying ill rime 'Pe t roti‘ • titan a month. ke ni l 0 f art Donnelly remained at the Do re th an blot the deceased was missing for ro ° , oo se night, and frequently conversed aPr wife without the least .ernotini l ( i ) if with Ab et:ths‘ the time. He said she was and would not trouble hi a m di a o g u a r : ll fee b r ee :::::: l : e t period he has cohabited with anniu_videece:.l,ooo The Coroner summed up tile ',cause, c edi ed, • 00 Z r Ot Jury ; be was glad they evidence of great importance had s , on ko ifts „ d let they would be able to come to a zydthe l y n a t s h s a e t n ,Ln e t , l l, t h t e )e e vbiad,ei n n ee () t stsi t toit:t p o t ct ° b r a y ' 00' 7 . i t a I. Off elusion upon die subject. retor t° poo ne The Jury, without besitatinthwoort r ot of " Wilful murder against _ n det the husband of the deceased,"'"ensiorm. 5i2E2122i5=11±L . 2±21...,,V1 11 dyed , be d 0 LONDON: Printed by J. B. CARSla_A_d w oo at 1 11 01 0 Ormoud-strect, Quecu-square; "___:;reett , 1 ,0) SCRIPPS, of No. 7, South MoltodDvatiora. Office, No. 112, Strand ; where '‘ ddref icd, , Utters, &a. ,(post-paid) must 1)6 a ' ' I ~ / ;~ i - Is7, ~~ I ~ t) T.